


i will keep the light on

by moonmemory



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Pining, it's all very soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:01:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24090241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonmemory/pseuds/moonmemory
Summary: They stayed in the diner long after they had finished their shakes, and Trixie kept talking about literally everything and Katya just wanted to stay like this forever; across from Trixie in a worn out booth with retro music playing softly in the background and pretending that this was all there was.Or five times Katya thought I love you and one time she said it.
Relationships: Trixie Mattel/Katya Zamolodchikova
Comments: 68
Kudos: 160





	1. i

Katya heard knocking on the bathroom stall and wanted to lift her feet off of the ground and hold her breath until the person went away to leave her alone with her sadness. Then she heard the quiet but certain, “Katya?” and instead unlocked the door, revealing Trixie with a sympathetic look on her face. Trixie stepped into the stall and wordlessly opened her arms. Katya fell into them, burying her face in the crook of Trixie’s neck, breathing in deeply and feeling immediately calmer, simply because of her proximity to Trixie. 

“I can’t believe they said that to you,” Trixie said, and Katya could physically feel her anger in the way she tensed up and how her hands held onto Kaya’s shirt just a little tighter than they usually would.

“It’s true though.”

“That doesn’t make it okay.”

Katya shrugged.

“It doesn’t.” Trixie said the words with so much conviction Katya almost believed it herself. “They have no right - they don’t even know…” Trixie let out a tense breath and Katya felt her clench her jaw. “Fuck them.”

This was why Katya needed Trixie. She didn’t like being upset, much less angry with anyone. It gave her headaches and made her act irrationally and unfairly, but Trixie held onto her anger and used it for fuel, stomping through the world in her six inch heels. 

“Do you want to get out of here?” Trixie asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t want to take a history quiz on the industrial revolution though, that’s for sure.” 

She actually wouldn’t have minded taking the quiz, she had studied tediously for it, but she couldn’t bear the thought of Trixie walking off to her AP chemistry class and leave Katya behind.

“I’m thinking milkshakes and cheese fries.”

“Okay,” Katya agreed.

She would have agreed to anything Trixie suggested.

Half an hour later Trixie was scooping the whipped cream of her strawberry milkshake with the end of her straw like she always did, prodding Katya with her foot under the table, making electricity course through her veins every time they made contact. Katya rolled her eyes, but a small smile tugged at the ends of her lips, which made Trixie look satisfied.

“Did you hear Violet and Pearl broke up?” Trixie asked.

Katya knew it was only to distract her, knew that Trixie was aware she didn’t actually care much for high school drama, but she appreciated the distraction anyway. And she really appreciated she could pretend  _ that _ hadn’t happened for just a little while longer.

“Again?” 

“Yeah, Shea told me. Apparently -” Trixie dove into her retelling of their dramatic break-up, which Katya only half-listened to. A sense of calm washed over her, as she watched Trixie talk with big hand gestures and a louder voice in between sips of milkshake. Honestly, Trixie could have been reading gibberish aloud from one of her chemistry books and it would have made Katya feel content.

It was stupid and she should really get over herself, but she saw Trixie almost every day and she fell in love with her a little more every time she did. No one else knew her quite like she did. And no else had been willing to stick up for her and thrust their middle finger into the face of overstepping classmates like Trixie had.

It wouldn’t hurt if she indulged herself into fantasies of maybe, just a little longer, she thought. At least not anymore than it already did. 

“- and she just straight up dumped her drink over her. Isn’t that crazy?” Trixie looked at Katya expectantly, so Katya nodded, sure that Trixie’s assessment of crazy was true. “I mean, I thought shit like that only happened in bad Netflix teen dramas.”

“Yeah,” Katya agreed half-heartedly and a beat too late. Trixie seemed to catch her hesitance so Katya tried to smile, alluring to Trixie that everything was fine, even though nothing was fine.

“Kat, don’t.”

Katya let the fake smile drop from her face and stared embarrassed down at her still almost full milkshake. She should have known Trixie would look right through it.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“Okay,” Trixie said, like it was simple. She knew that Trixie was only dropping it for now, knew that she’d have cried about it with her in her pink bedroom before the week was up.

“Tell me something else,” Katya asked.

“Uh.” Trixie was quiet for a few seconds, and Katya could see her desperately try to think of something, anything, to talk to Katya about. “I’m thinking about running for school council.”

“Really?”

“No.”

Katya laughed. She couldn’t help it. It was such a stupid thing to say, but it was so quintessentially Trixie it made her feel lighter. Trixie laughed too, loudly and unapologetically and got dissatisfied looks from the two middle aged women sitting in the booth across from theirs. If she noticed their stares she didn’t let it on, just continued smiling broadly with creases around her eyes after their laughter died down. 

Katya so wanted to kiss her.

“Could you imagine though?” Trixie wondered aloud, laughter still evident in her voice. 

“You’d probably be great at it,” Katya told her. “I can name at least five persons who are scared shitless by you.”

She laughed again and knowing Katya had made her laugh made her momentarily forget about everything else.

“I hate you,” Trixie screeched, her voice high-pitched and breathless.

“Sure, Barbara.”

“I do,” Trixie insisted as she sucked the grease from the fries off of her fingers and made Katya’s brain short circuit.

They stayed in the diner long after they had finished their shakes, and Trixie kept talking about literally everything and Katya just wanted to stay like this forever; across from Trixie in a worn out booth with retro music playing softly in the background and pretending that this was all there was. 

“Do you wanna go to my place?” Trixie asked once people started trickling in more frequently and it became harder to ignore the outside world.

“Yeah, okay.”

They both knew going to Katya’s wasn’t a real option.

They took the long way home to Trixie, driving by the coast with the windows rolled down, wafts of salt and seaweed blowing their hair into their mouths and blared one of Trixie’s playlists so loudly it drowned out Katya’s thoughts. She would never admit it, but she had been listening to them a lot lately and knew most songs by heart now.

She looked over at Trixie with her heart shaped sunglasses perking on the bridge of her nose, singing along to the song under her breath, her index finger tapping out its beat on the steering wheel, and thought  _ I love you _ . But she didn’t dare say it.


	2. ii

Trixie was sucking on a lollipop and Katya was having a very hard time concentrating on her French homework. 

Trixie looked up and Katya’s face turned pink when she was caught staring. Trixie didn’t say anything, just sent Katya a soft smile and stuck the lollipop back in between her lips again, staining the white stick pink. 

She got a small furrow between her brows and stopped sucking for a moment as she read and reread a paragraph in her textbook. She let out an annoyed huff and scribbled a note in pink ink in the margin of the book, then flipped to the previous page and scribbled something there. 

She looked unreal, Katya thought, lying on her stomach with her hair cascading in blonde curls over her shoulders and resting on the grass, her legs crossed in the air, and her whole being bathed in sunlight. She was the kind of person who belonged in sunlight, with her tan, freckled skin and wide grin and a presence more demanding than a supernova.

Katya rolled onto her back and stared up at the white puffy clouds, hoping it would take her mind of Trixie for a minute, but she heard shuffling and then Trixie was laying next to her, her sun warmed skin almost touching Katya’s, and then Trixie was all Katya could think of again.

“Want to make up stories about the clouds?” Trixie asked. It was something they had spent countless hours doing when they were kids and the world was still undiscovered and their imagination was just their best friend.

“Okay,” Katya said, because she was always feeling a little nostalgic. And because she wanted an excuse to lie next to Trixie like this for a little while longer. “You go first.”

Trixie pointed up to the sky. “Do you see that one? The long, very puffy one?”

Katya nodded.

“That’s Kaitlin, the sweetest cloud in Cloud City. She’s not had a very easy life, but you wouldn’t know it if she didn’t tell you. She treats everyone with kindness, even if they don’t deserve it, and you feel almost electric in her presence, because her energy rubs off on you. She makes you want to be a better person, makes you hope you can just have a fraction of her goodness in you, despite it seeming impossible. Everyone who gets to meet her should count themselves very lucky. 

Now this cloud next to her, that’s Tracy, and Tracy is the luckiest out of everyone. She is the luckiest cloud because Kaitlin looked at her, and saw her, really, truly saw her, and decided she liked her, with all her imperfections and brashness, and so the two became friends, but they felt like kindred spirits. Tracy felt so lucky that she was allowed to love Kaitlin, and that she got to love her more fiercely than anyone else, because loving her made her a better person. As the two clouds got older, Kaitlin’s home life got worse and worse, and her family didn’t feel much like her family at all. So Tracy said, I’ll be your family now, because Kaitlin felt like her family anyway. And while Tracy never said it, she thought to herself quite often that she would follow Kaitlin across all skies if only it meant she could stay by her side, because she never felt more at home than when she was with her. And so she decided she would do just that, because she had been told all her life she should do what made her happy.”

Katya watched as Tracy and Kaitlin disappeared out of their line of sight and off to another sky of happiness together and felt her heart sink at their lack of presence despite it being incredibly stupid.

And she thought  _ I love you, I love you, I love you _ . The sentence was pumped through her veins and spread out into every fiber of her being with each heartbeat, but she didn’t say it out loud. Trixie didn’t say anything either, just grabbed Katya’s hand and stared up at the sky, giving Katya the illusion of privacy she needed to collect herself.

“I thought we were supposed to make up stories,” Katya said, but she was crying.

“We are. We’re writing our own ending to the story.” 

She must have fallen asleep, because she was gently shaken awake by Trixie when the sun was starting to set and the sky was golden.

“Sorry,” Katya mumbled and Trixie immediately narrowed her eyes. 

“Don’t apologize.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“Katya.”

Katya sat up and looked around just so she wouldn’t look at Trixie and apologize again. Most people had cleared out by now, which made sense, it being a Wednesday and this being a park mostly used by families. She kind of wanted to stay here with Trixie until it was dark so they could walk through the park and all they could hear were their own footsteps and the sound of crickets and she could pretend they were the only two people in the world.

“Can we stay for a bit?” Katya asked.

“Sure,” Trixie said, because she was Trixie, and really, she was the one too good for the world. “Will you braid my hair?”

“Yeah,” Katya breathed. As if she would ever say no. 

Katya sectioned Trixie’s hair off and let her hands brush through it a few more times than she needed to. She couldn’t help herself, especially not with Trixie leaning into the touch and it making the scent of her lavender shampoo fill Katya up for a moment. Trixie started humming a familiar melody under her breath and Katya felt warm all over even as the sun disappeared and the air got colder. When Katya had tied the yellow hair-tie around the end of the braid she noticed goosebumps that mixed with Trixie’s star-constellation of freckles down her arms and pulled off her sweater and wrapped it around Trixie.

“You’ll get cold,” Trixie protested and tried to untangle herself from the sweater.

“I won’t. Remember, I’m the hottest person to ever walk to earth.”

“You sure have a high opinion of yourself, miss thing. Me on the other hand...” Trixie got up and sent Katya a wide, crooked smile, showing all her teeth. Katya couldn’t help laugh, and took Trixie’s hand when she offered it. She didn’t want to let go once she too was standing, but she did it anyway.

“Let’s go say hi to the ducks,” Trixie suggested, but it wasn’t really a suggestion, because she was already swinging her backpack across one shoulder and walking towards the pond.

“Do you think Brunhilda is still there?” Katya asked and fell into step with Trixie without the intention of doing so.

“She better be. I’m not gonna use a dollar to feed any of the other ducks, that’s for sure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're all safe and well. If you want to talk, I'm [@moonmemory](https://moonmemory.tumblr.com/) <3


	3. iii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for the beginning of a panic attack. stay safe loves <3

Katya didn’t really want to be here, sitting awkwardly between two girls she had never seen before, talking over her about some guy on the football team who was apparently a massive dick. He probably had one, too. The brunette seemed to think so, at least.

Trixie had convinced her to come, and she never asked for much, so Katya couldn’t bring herself to say no. Especially not when she knew Trixie would dress up and let Katya help her pick out an outfit for the party, and it would give her an excuse to let her eyes roam over Trixie’s body and pretend it was because she was contemplating whether or not the outfit was right for the occasion, and not because she wanted to use all her waking hours looking at Trixie.

She was contemplating leaving her rather uncomfortable spot and go find Trixie outside, when the brunette next to her said, “Oh fuck!” with so much panic in her voice Katya felt immediately alerted. She had barely turned her head when a jet of vomit landed in her lap, warm and thick and disgusting. Katya stared at the puddle in disbelief, then looked up at the brunette, who was repeating an apology Katya didn’t register over and over again, then back at the puddle.

“It’s okay,” Katya said quietly, maybe to the girl, mostly to herself, probably, but her eyes were stinging with tears.

Why did it always have to be her?

“- and I’ll, like, pay for you to get your pants cleaned. Like, oh gosh I’m really so, so sorry! Like, I swear I’m not usually like this.”

Katya blinked away her tears and told herself to get it the fuck together. This was not the end of the world. It was just vomit. She could deal with it. It was just vomit.

She sent the girl a small smile. “It’s fine, I’ll just wash them.”

“No, no, I insist!”

Katya broadened her smile. “Really, it’s okay.” 

Please just leave.

Fuck.

It was just vomit. It was just vomit. It was just vomit.

The girl blinked at her a couple of times, before sending her a relieved smile. “Really? Thanks. Wow, like thank you so much. Take this, at least.”

Before Katya knew it her hand was closing around a half-empty bottle of cheap vodka that most likely tasted like hand disinfector and the girl was off with her friend by her side, complaining about how her breath would be smelly and that she didn’t have any of her good mints left and it was just so fucking typical that her night would be ruined like this. 

Katya had the couch to herself, but the solitude felt lonelier than the non-company of two strangers and she wished they’d come back. They didn’t.

She looked back down at the puddle, unsure how she should proceed. The vomit was seeping through her pants and she could feel how her thighs went from being warm to being wet and sticky. God, she wished she’d just stayed home. She hoped someone, anyone, would sense her distress and offer to help her clean up, but anyone she caught looking looked away again just as quickly, cheeks tinted red.

It was just vomit. It was just vomit. It was just vomit. It was just vomit. It was just vomit. It was just vomit.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

This was really not good.

Shit. Crap. Fucking shitting fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

She could feel her heart rate speed up and her throat closing and tears stinging in her eyes once more when a loud laugh that was unmistakably Trixie’s echoed around the room and all other sounds subsided. 

She found her in the crowd, looking right at Katya with her mouth broadened in a wide smile. Her smile faltered as she took in Katya in her full state. She was sure she looked wrong, with her statue-like stance and eyes hurting from being opened too wide. She wanted to take it back, and look right so Trixie could enjoy the party, but it was too late. Trixie had seen her, and her wrongness and she knew it was a lost cause to convince her that it had just been a trick of lights.

Trixie was in front of her in a few long strides and pointed into her lap. “Who did this?”

Katya shrugged. “Uhm. Some girl.”

“Could you be a little more specific on your descriptions of this fucker?”

“It’s okay, Trixie. She didn’t mean to.”

“What was she wearing? A dress? Jeans? A skirt?” Trixie looked around the room with thunderclouds for eyes, probably hoping she could find whoever was responsible by sheer force of will alone.

“Trixie,” Katya said, almost too quiet to be heard over the music, and brought Trixie’s gaze back on her. She could visibly see how Trixie’s face softened and she both loved and hated she was the reason behind it. “Just… Just get this off of me.”

Trixie gave her a curt nod, squeezed her shoulder and disappeared into the crowd of classmates that felt more like strangers than anything else. She returned with a black plastic bag and gloves in a brighter shade of yellow than the one on her dress but that somehow went with it anyway. Katya was maybe slightly biased in that assessment. 

Slowly and with measured movements Trixie managed to clean Katya’s pants so only a dark stain was left. She threw both the bag and the gloves into the trash.

“I think I have a spare dress in the car,” Trixie told Katya as she helped her to her feet. She didn’t let go of Katya’s hand, gave it a squeeze instead, and Katya suddenly didn’t mind coming anymore.

“I’ll be surprised if you don’t.”

“Oh fuck off.”

Trixie led them through the crowd and out of the house and two of them walked hand in hand down the dimly lit street. Katya couldn’t help sneaking glances at Trixie, lit up by the stars and the moon and flickering street lights. When Trixie caught her looking, Katya felt her face burn pink, but she didn’t look away. The corner of Trixie’s mouth flicked upwards and Katya thought that she loved the night so much because it felt so full of possibilities. 

They stopped by Trixie’s car and Katya’s heart stopped when Trixie reached inside Katya’s pocket to retrieve her car keys. She felt goosebumps rise by her hipbone even though their skin was separated by two layers of clothing. The front of Trixie disappeared through the backdoors of the car and Katya willed herself not to stare at Trixie’s ass. She almost succeeded and thought it was very cruel of Trixie to lean over in a dress like that on an empty street with nothing to distract Katya.

“Here,” Trixie said and handed Katya a soft, pink dress that she would have never picked out for herself, but had seen hug Trixie’s figure on countless occasions.

“Thanks.”

The two of them switched places and Trixie turned her back to Katya even though they had changed in front of each other so often Katya knew Trixie’s body almost as well as her own. Katya undressed and felt oddly exposed despite no one watching her. She quickly slipped the dress on, and while it was a little too big and the sleeves covered her hands, it felt safe. And it smelled like lavenders and sleeping in on the weekend and summer rain and love.

Katya would live in the scent of Trixie if she could.

“I’m decent,” Katya croaked and cleared her throat, her mouth feeling awfully dry.

“That’s an outright lie,” Trixie said as she turned around. “You’ve never been decent one day of your life.”

Katya breathed a laugh and grabbed Trixie’s arm, shaking it for good measure. She shook it a little more when she saw crinkles form by Trixie’s eyes and heard a happy laugh that drowned out her own.

“You! You!” Katya rejoiced, but she wasn’t sure where she was going with it, so she just made a strange sound that made Trixie’s grin even wider and Katya’s stomach explode with butterflies.  _ I love you. _

“Can we get fries on the way home?” Trixie asked and pressed the car keys into Katya’s hand.

“Don’t you want to go back to the party?”

“Not unless it’s because you want to point out that bitch so I can give her a piece of my mind.”

“She was just drunk.”

“She still left you with her vomit in your lap.”

Katya opened her mouth to answer, to continue her defense of the girl, but realized that maybe Trixie was right. “Let’s get fries. And cherry coke,” she said instead.

“Cherry coke is disgusting,” Trixie told her as she got into the passenger seat.

“It is not,” Katya countered, despite knowing she wouldn’t sway Trixie’s opinion. They had had this argument too many times through the years for her to have any kind misgivings of that being possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is such a weird time. I hope you all are okay and safe, especially if you're protesting. If it's possible, consider donating. Otherwise watching [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCgLa25fDHM) video helps donate to blm and it's 100% free.  
> I'm [@moonmemory](https://moonmemory.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, come say hi if you want!


	4. iv

Katya was sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk in the burning hot sun. It was truly unfair that it was this hot already when the sun had just risen. The street was quiet, no kids out yelling at each other during intense games of soccer or neighbors having too loud conversations about everything but their own business. A bike came racing by her and Katya thought she might die if she had to exercise in any way, shape or form in this weather. She felt like she was close to melting away just by sitting still on the sidewalk. 

She kept her gaze hopefully on the corner of the street looking for Trixie’s air-conditioned car. She heard it before she could see it, the tones of Dolly making the morning come alive and Katya’s heart speed up with anticipation.

Trixie honked twice as soon as she spotted Katya even though it was too early to make that much noise and it was entirely unnecessary. Katya still grinned widely, grabbing her beach bag as she got up.

“Get in, bitch,” Trixie called through the rolled down window before the car had even come to a full stop.

Katya did and seconds later they were speeding through the neighborhood Katya had grown up in, familiar houses being nothing but white, brown and red blurs with only Trixie in focus. They must have looked incredibly out of place, in Trixie’s bright car at six on a Saturday morning with big grins plastered on their faces and laughter in their fingertips.

Trixie cranked up the volume as soon as they hit the highway and Katya let out a joyous scream through the rolled down window, because she wanted to and because no one other than Trixie could hear her. Trixie looked at Katya with surprise and a second later she was screaming as well. They screamed and screamed and screamed until their throats were sore and their cheeks hurt and Katya felt completely free. Then they laughed and Katya felt happiness bubble up inside her in that way it only did when she was with Trixie.

“I missed you,” she told Trixie despite it not even being three full days since she last saw her.

“Me too.” Trixie looked over at Katya and she could truly not understand how most people saw Trixie as cold when all she was to Katya was warmth and softness. 

They pulled up on a nearly empty parking lot and had a quick, heated discussion of who should carry the heavy backpack Trixie had brought. Katya won but regretted her insistence on carrying it as she could feel sweat trickling down her forehead. Trixie walked ahead of her, Katya’s beach bag swung over one shoulder, scouting for the best spot on the beach, as if they wouldn’t just end up on the same part of the beach they always did. She had her shoes off and seconds later she was running towards a shaded area with exclamations of the sand burning her poor feet. Katya let out a laugh and ran after her, the bag bouncing off her back with each step.

They spread out their towels, Trixie’s a pink one covered in daisies, Katya’s sporting purple jellyfish, claiming their usual spot, and Trixie jammed the parasol into the sand so Katya could lie in the shade. Katya jimmied out of her shorts and t-shirt, looked at Trixie with a wild smile and yelled, “Last one in the water is a smelly loser.” She took off a second later, running as fast as she could towards the edge of the water and looked over her shoulder as Trixie struggled to get out of her sundress.

“That’s unfair Katya! I wasn’t ready yet,” she exclaimed as she tried to untangle her hair from one of the straps.

“You’re just a sore loser! If you wanted to not be a smelly loser enough you wouldn’t care about your pretty dress.”

“You know it’s a new dress!”

“That’s besides the point, miss Mattel.”

“It really isn’t,” Trixie huffed, and Katya could hear from the way her breathing was a little ragged and how her words pitched higher than usual that she had started running even though Katya was only a few steps away from the water and there was no way in hell she would be able to win.

Katya’s feet made contact with the chilly water and it splashed in every direction as she got in deeper and deeper before diving under. She stayed submerged in the water for a while longer than was necessary, enjoying the special kind of calm silence that only existed under the sea.

When she broke through the surface Trixie was making her way towards Katya with a resolute look on her face. Katya knew that meant one thing and one thing only. She considered trying to run from her, but she had already raised her arms, hands grabbing for Katya, and Trixie would catch up with her at some point anyway, so Katya just took a deep breath and next she knew Trixie had pushed her back beneath the water. Katya got ahold of Trixie’s hand and forced her under the surface too and then the two of them existed only as a tangled up mess consisting of warm limbs and blonde hair and hands grabbing onto the other’s as if it was the only way to stay alive. Katya opened her eyes despite the saltwater making them sting and blew out a stream of bubbles when she found Trixie’s brown eyes staring back at her. A swarm of butterflies came to life in the pit of her stomach when neither of them looked away, and they joined the ever growing pack of butterflies that seemed to have taken up permanent residence there. 

Maybe she should just kiss her. It would be easy, she thought, when all sounds were muffled by the water and when she could feel Trixie’s hand in her own and when her lungs were burning with the need for air.

She pushed off from the ocean bottom instead, because it would be cruel and selfish, too, and she tried her best to be neither of those. 

They splashed around until the beach started to fill up with families and groups of friends and Katya accidentally kicked a tween instead of Trixie. Trixie was laughing so hard tears formed in her eyes and Katya moped to the best of her abilities until she started laughing too, because she couldn’t not laugh when Trixie did.

Trixie pulled out a glistening magazine from her bag and flipped through it until she found the test yourself section. 

“Scoot over,” she told Katya, so Katya did, despite there really not being enough space for both of them on her towel. She could feel the entirety of Trixie’s right side pressed against her left, leaving Trixie-shaped burns. She didn’t mind.

“Let’s do the ‘which fruit are you’ quiz,” Katya suggested.

“Alright. I’ll bet you’re something weird, like a dragon fruit or something.”

Katya shoved Trixie with her shoulder. “Dragon fruits are cool, so I’m taking that as a compliment.”

“You think anything to do with dragons is cool.”

“Yeah, because dragons are the coolest mythical creatures.”

“Except for mermaids.”

Katya gasped over dramatically. “Mermaids are not cooler than dragons, what the fuck Trixie!”

“But they are though. I mean with their colorful tails and their flowing hair and their pretty faces and heart shaped mouths.” Katya cocked an eyebrow and Trixie glowed pink.

“Shut up,” Trixie muttered. “Let’s do the quiz.”

“Okay,” Katya said, but she kept her eyes on Trixie’s blushing face a while longer, unable to look away from how the pink looked so natural on her. Unable to stop thinking about how much she wanted to make Trixie blush like that all the time.

When Trixie started reading the questions aloud, Katya watched her index finger, its nail covered in chipped baby pink nail polish, as it glided along the page beneath the words, taping once every time she reached a full stop. She had a habit of doing this when she read aloud with Katya next to her. She hadn’t wanted to notice, but she couldn’t help observe how she didn’t do the same with Shea or Kim and it was stupid, because it was such a small thing, but it made her feel special. 

Sometimes she thought it might be easier if Trixie didn’t make it so easy to feel special, and to feel chosen, and to feel loved. More often she thought about how much easier it would be if she could voice how Trixie made her feel special, and chosen and loved, and how she wanted to make Trixie feel like that, too. 

But she couldn’t say it, so she thought it instead. She thought it so hard she hoped Trixie might just hear it anyway.

_I love you, Trixie Mattel. I love you I love you I love you._

Katya was apparently an orange, which she thought was stupid until Trixie turned out to be an apple and took it as a personal insult.

“What a stupid quiz,” Trixie huffed. “An apple? A fucking _apple_?”

“I know right? Very fitting,” Katya said with laughter evident in her voice, making Trixie swat at her and Katya laugh even harder and grab onto Trixie’s arm. “Let’s do another one.”

“Or let’s chug this magazine into the ocean.”

They did the rest of the quizzes and Katya read their horoscopes even though neither of them really believed them. They both napped on Katya’s towel because the sun was too hot, though Katya didn’t get much sleep at all. She didn’t really mind. She loved watching the rise and fall of Trixie’s chest, and hearing her calm breathing, and just getting to be close to this completely unguarded Trixie. 

She woke her up when she got too sweaty and the sun had moved so much half of Katya’s body was burning in the sun, and the two of them went for a swim despite the water not doing much to cool them down anymore. They bought overpriced sandwiches and shared a melted soft serve ice cream and built sand castles decorated with seashells and suddenly the day had disappeared and families had left the beach and the sun was setting on the horizon, coloring the sky in reds and pinks and yellows. 

“This is so beautiful,” Katya whispered.

“Yeah,” Trixie breathed in agreement, but when Katya turned her gaze to Trixie, she wasn’t watching the sunset. Katya’s heart thudded in her chest and she thought _maybe, maybe, maybe_ , but she looked away from Trixie’s burning gaze before she became reckless.

She wished she could just be reckless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, hello and thank you for reading! Black lives still matter, so please donate of you're able to, or at least watch [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCgLa25fDHM) video to donate to blm for free.  
> I'm [@moonmemory](https://moonmemory.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, come say hi if you want! I would also love to hear your thoughts on the chapter <3


	5. v

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi hello! I know it's been a small eternity since the last chapter, but I've had this one grow inside me for a long time now. I have also made a playlist for this fic. If you're interested you can find it [here.](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2UR1CmQiHN4HNp5Lvb4Ng3)  
> Also, thank you so much for all the nice feedback, I'm indredibly honored by it.

Katya carefully placed her bike against the old oak tree in Trixie’s front lawn they used to climb and whisper secrets to each other in when they were kids, her fingertips grazing over the _ K _ and  _ T _ etched into the wood. She slowly let go of her bike, but when she was just a few steps away from it, it started sliding down the three anyway until it landed on the ground with a soft thud.

Katya blinked at it a few times as it lay unmoving on the ground. It wasn’t that different from leaning against the tree, she supposed, so she let it be.

She quietly made her way towards Trixie’s window, even though she wasn’t making much sound to begin with. A soft, pink glow was coming from behind her curtains, the only fixture of light in the otherwise dark house. Katya tapped her finger lightly against the cool glass and a few moments later, a confused-looking Trixie was peeking out from between the slightly drawn back curtains. Her eyes lit up when she recognized Katya, and Katya felt a warm feeling bloom in the pit of her stomach. She drew the curtains all the way back and motioned for Katya to move backwards. As she did, Trixie was cracking the window open and leaned out over the windowsill, her face peeking out into the night and making it feel like the sun was rising.

“Hey,” Trixie said. There was concern in her eyes, which made Katya feel stupid and special all at once, but she was still smiling, so Katya knew she wasn’t looking too upset.

“Hey.” 

It should have been weird, her sneaking out and biking halfway across town after midnight on a Tuesday, but it wasn’t because Katya had been escaping to Trixie’s at all hours of the day for almost as long as they had been friends. 

“My mom was… Uh. You know how she is.”

Trixie nodded, her smile fading and her concern visibly growing. “Sorry,” she offered. Katya shrugged. She had long since accepted there was nothing she could do to change it. That didn’t make it hurt any less. “Do you wanna come inside?”

“Can we stay outside? It’s just that I don’t -”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course, let me just grab a sweater.” Trixie disappeared back into her room and moved out of view from the window, so Katya wrapped her arms around herself in a weak attempt to fight off the Trixie-less-ness even though Trixie was literally less than ten feet away. 

She was so pathetic.

Trixie reappeared in the window and dropped a thick, yellow blanket onto the ground. Then she opened her window as widely as she could and climbed out through it, bumping her shoulder against Katya’s when both her feet were back on the grass, damp from the dew.

“The grass or the roof?” Trixie asked as she picked up the blanket and hugged it to her chest.

“Roof,” Katya said without needing to consider it. She loved just existing on a roof, any roof, because it wasn’t made for humans to exist on, so it felt like a small way to defy the universe. It felt like reclaiming something she didn’t know she had lost.

Katya hoisted herself up first and caught the blanket when Trixie threw it to her. As she tried to spread it out and it kept creasing no matter how many times she tried to smoothen it out, she could feel a knot growing in her stomach because this stupid, fucking blanket wouldn’t just lie nicely and smoothly on the rooftop.

“It’s fine as it is,” Trixie said behind her as Katya furiously tried to straighten one of the corners, which somehow made the opposite one pop up. “It doesn’t have to be perfect, you know.”

Katya nodded once, but still felt the itching in her fingers to make it look  _ right _ .

“C’mon,” Trixie muttered as she crawled past Katya, and over the blanket, wrinkling it even further. When Katya didn’t move, Trixie made grabby hands towards her from where she was lying which left Katya with no choice but to do as Trixie asked.

When Katya’s head rested next to Trixie’s she could sense Trixie’s hand inching closer to her own, so fueled by the braveness of the night she grabbed it and wove their fingers together. When she dared turn her head ever so slightly to look at Trixie, she felt her pulse quicken so much she was sure the girl next to her could feel it, too. Trixie was lit up by the almost full moon, and she was shining brighter and more beautifully than any star, a small smile on her face that Katya knew was just for her when Trixie met her gaze and the sides of her mouth quirked upwards just the tiniest bit.

“Tell me about the stars,” Trixie requested, when all Katya wanted to do was move closer until the two of them became one. She looked at Trixie’s face, with her warm brown eyes, slightly crooked nose and the freckles she used to hate until Katya convinced her to love them, instead. She wanted to kiss every single one, just let her lips brush each one so lightly it would feel like being kissed by starlight. 

She told Trixie about the stars instead, about the legends they were named after, and made up their stories when she couldn’t remember or when she didn’t like the original one. And she gave them all a happy ending, because everyone deserved one. At some point Trixie had started moving her thumb in slow motions around the back of Katya’s hand and it was making Katya feel grounded and afloat all at once. When she didn’t want to talk anymore she turned to Trixie and said, “Tell me about the stars.” So Trixie told her about impossibilities and hydrogen-based dust clouds and supernovas. 

Then they just watched the stars in silence, linked together by their hands and an invisible red string.

Katya could hear how Trixie’s breathing was beginning to even out and her caressing was slowing down when a shooting star flashed across the sky and made Katya’s heart light up.

“Look!” She exclaimed, and raised their clasped hands to point towards it even though the flash of lighting had already disappeared.

“What?” Trixie asked, her voice thick with sleepiness.

“A shooting star!” 

“Oh wow, you’re lucky. You get to make a wish now!”

Katya could feel Trixie’s head turn towards her, so she looked away from the sky and towards Trixie and felt her heart stop momentarily when she’d forgotten how close the two of them lay. She could probably count her eyelashes even though it was dark.

“I want you to have it,” Katya whispered, and it was the closest thing to  _ I love you _ she could say.

“That’s not how it works.”

“Why not?”

Katya could see Trixie’s eyes take her in, searching her face. She didn’t say anything for a short eternity, but then muttered a quiet, “Okay. Thank you,” with her face glowing brighter in the moonlight.

Trixie’s eyes fluttered shut, and Katya squeezed Trixie’s hand and hoped she was fearless in a way that Katya wasn’t. A heavy silence pressed down on the two of them when her eyes opened again, and Katya was almost afraid to break it.

She felt her breath hitch in her throat, but asked, “What did you wish for?” anyway, because she had to know. Because she hadn’t been brave enough to wish for it herself.

“I can’t tell you, or it won’t come true.”

“I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”

They looked at each other in complete solitude from the rest of the world and Katya felt like she was a supernova getting closer and closer to exploding as silent seconds ticked by.

“I think you already know what I wished for,” Trixie finally said, and she sounded so truthful and real and raw that Katya thought she might know, too.

“Tell me,” Katya whispered, her voice breaking slightly, and with her heart in her hand extended towards Trixie, hers to keep. “Please.”

“I…” Trixie started. She looked at Katya with such carefulness, and doubt, and consideration, and then she inched closer, so slightly they could both have pretended it wasn’t deliberate.

“Please,” Katya repeated, and Trixie must have understood, because she let go of Katya’s hand and laid it gently on her cheek instead and Katya felt the left side of her face catch on fire. When Katya moved her own hand on top of Trixie’s, a small sigh escaped the girl next to her and relief flooded through her because now she  _ knew _ they were both feeling that invisible force around their hearts that had been pulling them closer together since they had first laid eyes on each other and decided their hearts belonged to the other as much as it did to themselves.

So when Trixie kissed Katya it felt like coming home after having wandered the world alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come say hi on tumblr! I'm [moonmemory](https://moonmemory.tumblr.com/) <3


	6. +i

They were in Trixie’s car, driving east, driving towards freedom, even if that freedom would only last a weekend. Trixie had put on a playlist that reminded Katya of riding her bike up and down her street during summer vacation as a kid with two front teeth amiss and her knees covered in bandaids. It was turned down to a low strumming and she could hear Trixie humming along to it, her soft voice effortlessly harmonizing with the songs. 

Katya had her feet propped up on the dash and her eyes were switching between Trixie and the dry fields surrounding the road. It was surprisingly empty, but Katya had always prefered the less civilized roads, so she felt right at home. 

They drove by a field with around a dozen cows grazing and swatting flies away with their tails. Katya excitedly pointed them out to Trixie, who slowed down the car so Katya could stick her head out the window and moo at them. One of them mooed back and Katya decided to name him Herb and shouted a promise that she would never forget him, when he was just a brown spot in the rearview mirror. 

They had been driving for around two hours, playing silly car games and sharing snacks, when a wooden sign with half its paint worn off by the weather proclaimed a peach farm was only one mile away. Katya barely had time to turn her head towards the girl next to her before Trixie exclaimed, “Peaches!” with a refreshed energy to her being, and sped up the car in eagerness to find the farm. 

Stepping out of the car felt like walking into a brick wall of heat. It was warm and the air felt dry around her, the way it only did when it hadn’t rained for weeks. Katya missed the rain. 

She grabbed Trixie’s hand even though her own was already beginning to sweat, and the two of them followed the path that had been created stubborn feet, eventually ending up on a field with old peach trees splattered about in an uneven pattern, looking far more beautiful than the usual neat rows of farms.

For a long moment the two of them just stood there, hand in hand, breathing in everything and clearing their lungs of the toxicness from the big city.

Then Katya tugged on Trixie’s hand, and the two of them walked this way and that, inspecting the trees by letting their fingers glide across the rough bark of their trunks while listening to the buzzing of the bees and chirping of the birds. Neither of them said anything, both of them content just coexisting.

When they had walked for so long Katya had lost all sense of direction, she placed herself in the shade of a tree with a direct view of Trixie on her tiptoes, trying to reach one of the few ripe peaches that was hanging just high enough that only the tips of her fingers could graze it. 

She wished she had a camera, one of the old ones where you had to manually process the pictures, so she could capture Trixie with her tan and soft skin, sunlightened braids hanging down her back and the sun directly above her, her standing under it as if she was a natural extension of its beams. She didn’t have one though, so she just tried to memorize the sight instead.

Trixie finally seemed to accept she wouldn’t be able to reach the peach, so she turned around and looked at Katya with a crease between her brows and a huff. Katya got up with a grin and made her way towards the other girl.

“Don’t give me that look,” Trixie muttered, and crossed her arms over her chest.

“What look?” Katya asked, fully aware of what look she was giving her and highly amused by the situation.

Trixie gestured towards her accusingly. “You know, that… that look!”

Katya raised her brows. “Very specific, Trix.”

“Fuck off,” she said and swatted Katya on the arm.

“Do you need help reaching the peach?”

Trixie glared at her for a few more moments. “...Yeah.”

Katya gave her a quick peck on the lips and felt herself catch on fire for a moment, then turned her back to Trixie so she could jump up on it. Trixie did so as if it was as easy as breathing, as if she had done it a hundred times before. She probably had, Katya reckoned, if you combined the apple picking in the fall, and putting the tree-topper on the Christmas tree every Christmas, and their countless piggyback races against Shea and Kim.

“Got it,” sounded from above her, so Katya crouched down ever so slightly to make it easier for Trixie to get back on the ground. When Katya turned around to face Trixie, she was cradling the peach in her hand with a look of pure happiness plastered all over her face.

Katya loved that something as small as picking a peach could make Trixie light up like the sun, and she felt love replace the blood coursing through her veins.

They sat in the shade of the peach tree for a few hours, Katya’s back pressed against Trixie’s front, with Trixie’s arms around Katya’s middle, sometimes talking, sometimes just breathing in sync. Every time Katya felt Trixie’s hair tingle her neck she could feel words form on her lips, ready to be shouted from a mountain top or whispered into the quiet of the night, but every time they would die mid breath, never getting a chance to be spoken at all.

“What’s on your mind?” Trixie asked, when the words had died in Katya’s throat a few times too many.

“Just you,” Katya said, because that was the part of the truth she was able to say aloud.

“You’re such a sap,” Trixie laughed, and pressed her lips to the top of Katya’s head. When Trixie kissed her hair and Katya could feel her smile, it made a garden bloom inside her, melting away the remains of years stuck in a winter storm, the garden setting roots around her heart.

The grey clouds invaded the sky in minutes. The sun was beaming down on them with her kindness and warmth one minute, and the next she had disappeared behind a wall of grey. Both of them looked up at the sky with fascination, neither of them moving from their spot under the tree even though that would have been the logical thing to do. It was clear that it would start pouring any minute, and they would get soaked on their way back to the car, even if they ran the entire way. 

True enough, the sky opened up only seconds later, first with only a few, tentative drops, then gaining courage and letting every drop it had been holding back for weeks come pouring down. 

“Oh my God!” Trixie shrieked when a heavy raindrop landed right on her the tip of her nose, clinging on to it for a moment before gravity inevitably pulled it towards the ground. Katya burst out in a wheezing laughter that lasted right up until she could feel a drop splash on the back of her neck and trickle its way down her back, creating goosebumps in its way, and she let out a shriek as well.

She got to her feet, extending her hands towards Trixie, pulling her up too. The two of them looked out at the rainshower for a few moments, barely protected from it by the limber branches of the peach tree.

“We’re going to get soaked,” Katya said, but she didn’t realize the truth of the statement until she said it out loud. 

Trixie looked out at the scene in front of them for a few moments, her face completely neutral, then broke out into a delighted grin that took up all of her face. She turned her head towards Katya with daring in her eyes, and said, “Oh, definitely,” before stepping backwards out from under the tree, her eyes still locked on Katya’s and one eyebrow raised in a challenge. “Aren’t you coming, miss Zamoladodingdong?”

For a moment Katya saw the phantom of ten year old Trixie on her doorstep, her hair clinging to her forehead, her face only consisting of summer freckles, crooked teeth showed off in a gleeful smile and bright, brown eyes, as she challenged Katya to a bike race in the rain. Then present day Trixie brought Katya back to reality when she raised her hands in the air, turned her face towards the rain and let out a loud, joyous scream as her dress was getting drenched and her mascara was running down her cheeks.

Katya thought she had never looked more beautiful. 

Inspired by Trixie’s euphoric declaration of freedom, she too stepped out into the rain, and let out a ferocious yell while spinning and spinning and spinning, getting dizzier by the minute. She stopped, and looked at Trixie, and then both of them were running around screaming themselves sore and free. She ended up crashing into Trixie, making both of them topple over, Trixie landing softly on the ground, but still making water puddles splash all around her, and Katya landing on top of her. Both of them broke out laughing in the same instant, their laughter mixing in perfectly with the drumming of the rain.

Katya’s heart was racing, and if the rising and falling of Trixie’s chest was anything to go by, so was hers. Their laughter died down and their facecracking smiles turned soft. 

Drops from Katya’s loose hair were dribbling onto Trixie’s face, and Katya couldn’t help but carefully wipe them away even though the rest of Trixie had already been soaked by the rain. A soft look overtook her eyes and a tender smile spread across Trixie’s lips at the gesture. She placed her hand on top of Katya’s, Trixie’s warm where Katya’s had already turned cold. Trixie made goosebumps break out as her fingertips ghosted across the palm of Katya’s hand and for a moment everything seemed to still; the rain stopping mid air, sound turning into silence and the air inside Katya’s lungs evaporating as her heart kept pounding away in her chest.

“God, Trixie,” she croaked, her voice low and thick, her eyes trained at the beauty beneath her.

In that moment, the only movements were in the fluttering of Trixie’s eyelashes and the rise and fall of their chests. They were the only living beings in the entirety of the universe.

Slowly and deliberately Katya leaned down with a hand on each of Trixie’s cheeks. The moment their lips connected everything started again as suddenly as it had stopped, and rain was once more splashing all around them, twice as loudly as before.

If being around Trixie made her feel alive, then kissing her made her feel invincible. It made her feel liberated and brave, and it made her stop overthinking, so she pulled away, and locked her eyes with Trixie. She felt words come alive inside her, her heart pumping them through her veins, pumping them into her fingertips stroking Trixie’s cheeks, and closer and closer to her lips with every echoing thump.

“I love you,” she said.

And it wasn’t difficult, now that she had said it. And it wasn’t a revelation. The universe had known she had loved Trixie since she was seven and she had shared her graham crackers with her, she just hadn’t known the words for it then. 

“I love you, too,” Trixie said, and that wasn’t a revelation either. 

But it felt like it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally finished this! And it's only taken me two months to write the final chapter (writer's block is a bitch).  
> Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who's read, liked and commented on this - it means the world. And a special thanks to [zamo95](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zamo95/works) for always encouraging and believing in me. I love you <3  
> If you want to, you can find me on tumblr. I'm [@moonmemory](https://moonmemory.tumblr.com/) <3  
> Also, I made a playlist for this fic which you can find [here.](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2UR1CmQiHN4HNp5Lvb4Ng3)

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on tumblr! I'm [moonmemory](https://moonmemory.tumblr.com/) <3


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